1) It is not in the territory covered by the Antarctic Treaty The Antarctic Treaty 1959-12-01 http://www.ats.aq/documents/ats/treaty_original.pdf "The provisions of the present Treaty shall apply to the area south of 60° South Latitude" And it is the only zone center that is not south of 60° South Latitude but is in Antarctica/...... 2) IANA time zone database has some islands in oceans, some in continents Atlantic Ocean: Canary, Iceland Indian Ocean: Madagascar Pacific Ocean: New Zealand, Hawaii Asia: Taiwan, Cyprus, ASEAN island countries, Sri Lanka Australia (continent): Tasmania Europe: Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, Ireland, Great Britain Conclusion: 1) Moving Macquarie out of Antarctica/... fixes a bug. 2) Choosing the surrounding ocean (Pacific) or the nearest continent that is not Treaty-Antarctica (Australia) could be equally good. If distance is the deciding factor and since its distance to the Australian continent is similar to that of Auckland, and Madagascar with less than half the distance from its closest continent (Africa) is put in the surrounding ocean, the choice would be Pacific. Mallacoota - Macquarie 2010 km http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+between+54.5S158.95E+and+37.55... Sydney - Auckland - 2160 km http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+between+Auckland+Sydney -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com